The two institutions are joining forces to create new resources for scientists and researchers to help accelerate research discoveries for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases.

There are genetic variations in tumors that can help predict how patients will respond to certain therapies. It's that simple.

The collaboration is focused on creating a seamless system of laboratory resources for therapeutic discoveries and allows for collaborations between clinical investigators at City of Hope and researchers at JAX.

“City of Hope and The Jackson Laboratory are both leading biomedical research institutes focused on improving treatments for life-threatening diseases,” said Steven T. Rosen, M.D., provost and chief scientific officer at City of Hope. “This collaboration will continue to allow us to be at the forefront of genomic technology.”

“JAX has vast expertise and capacity in modeling human disease, but it’s essential to have partners like City of Hope who can address the clinical part of the equation, and to collapse the translational timeline to get better treatments to patients,” said Susan Airhart, senior director, strategic opportunities at The Jackson Laboratory. “Our collaborations with City of Hope have been phenomenal. I see success coming quickly from our newest collaboration.”

To start, City of Hope is now part of JAX’s Patient Derived Xenograft consortium, which offers a platform for researchers to determine the most effective drugs for individual patients. The organizations have also teamed up to investigate the genetics of triple negative breast cancer and pancreatic cancers to help better develop therapies for these diseases.

By studying genomic sequencing, scientists can find out how classes of different types of tumor mutations can be treated and then can apply individual therapies for these specific mutations. Scientists have found that the most effective treatments might not be based on individuals, but rather on the mutations associated with their tumor, within their cancer type.

“There are genetic variations in tumors that can help predict how patients will respond to certain therapies. It's that simple,” said John Termini, Ph.D., scientific director of shared resources and professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at City of Hope. “Through DNA sequencing, we can uncover the inter-individual differences which will allow us to optimize treatment regimens for individual patients. One size does not fit all, and if we want to see higher rates of recovery in cancer patients, we need to continue to work on how this genetic information can guide individual therapeutic regimens.”

By collaborating with JAX, City of Hope scientists and researchers rapidly gain new insights into personalized medicine and expand opportunities for the design of new therapeutic interventions.

Scientists at The Jackson Laboratory, including Carol Bult, are working to fill in the knowledge gaps in human genetics and make precision medicine achievable.